Off-road driving is growing in popularity. Places with off-road trails such as Moab, Utah have become very popular vacation destinations for people with off-road vehicles such as Jeeps®, SUVs, rock crawlers, trucks, and other off-road vehicles. Many thousands of off-roading destination miles invite those who want to get away from civilization. For example, tens of thousands of vehicles are driven on Moab's many off-road trails each year. Off-road destinations like Moab offer a variety of trails with varying difficulties. Some trails cannot be navigated without vehicle modifications to allow for greater grip, clearance, power, braking power, etc.
As such, many vehicles used off-road are modified to achieve greater off-road performance and to allow the vehicle to conquer and attempt difficult obstacles and trails. Some trails include rock obstacles that may come into contact with various parts of the underside of a vehicle. Running boards and rocker guards are often added to off-road vehicles to limit damage to rocker panels and other body panels by the rock obstacles. Another common modification is lifting the vehicle and adding larger wheels and tires to increase grip and clearance. Lifting the vehicle makes entering and exiting more difficult, requiring passengers to climb up into the vehicle with significant effort.
One solution to facilitating easy entry and exit from a lifted vehicle is an automatic step, such as the Powerstep offered by AMP research. However, such products are significantly more vulnerable to damage from contact with rock obstacles than fixed running boards and rocker guards, making it impractical to use vehicles equipped with automatic steps on more difficult off-road trails and obstacles, limiting the utility of the lifted vehicle. Such automatic steps also make it difficult or impossible to protect rocker panels with fixed running boards and rocker guards, lessening the off-road utility of vehicles equipped with automatic steps.